


Give Me More Than Flesh And Bone

by LookingForDroids



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Allies With Benefits, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), F/M, Masturbation, consensual voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 00:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21235058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: In lieu of giving in to more troublesome hungers, Gertrude falls back on certain stop-gap measures. Adelard Dekker is reliable as always.(There is perhaps some emotion beneath the pragmatism as well. Maybe. A little.)





	Give Me More Than Flesh And Bone

One of the lessons Gertrude has learned, over the span of a very long life marked by a great many harsh lessons, is that there are inclinations which hurt people needlessly and inclinations which don’t, and sometimes it’s necessary to indulge the latter in service of keeping the former bearable. She cannot afford to be a woman of illusions. Her philosophy is one of clear sight and harm reduction, and so when force of will and three cups of black coffee cease to be enough to keep the tremor from her hands, and her interest in the lives of others tends increasingly away from the merely academic, she acquires a disposable phone and makes a call to a private number.

“Dekker,” she says. She permits no weakness to touch her voice, but he knows her better than any other living human could, and consequently, he _knows._

“Something to take the edge off?” he asks. He sounds unaffected, but she knows him too, well enough to imagine the sudden rush of blood heating his face, the urge to avert his eyes as though that could hide him. Despite their long association, he is in some ways a very private man. She suspects this would be pointless if he wasn’t.

“Quite so,” she says. “Are you in London?”

“I can be in three days, once my current job is concluded,” he says. “Should I find company?”

“You alone, this time, I think.”

That’s all she has to say, and all he needs to hear. He say a brief goodbye and breaks the connection, leaving her with silence and a great deal of work remaining.

.

Three days pass slowly. Gertrude’s fingers linger on the written statements, tracing names, dates, the few terse lines of summary; she knows without effort which ones would satisfy, and she labels them all the same and files them away untouched. Her research progresses, but not fast enough. She is uncomfortably and inconveniently distractible. And when she leaves for the day, she goes straight home, avoiding the eyes of commuters on the tube with their chatter and their stories, and closes the door decisively behind her.

After holding on for all these years, she can feel her grip on the cliff’s edge slipping. That frightens her, but she can’t afford fear any more than she can afford pity, and so in lieu of contemplation, she simply fixes herself a cup of tea with two sugars which she doesn’t drink, and sits down to wait for the knock she knows is coming.

She doesn’t need to wait long. Just after eight, there is the sound of footsteps outside, and a sharp rap on her door, and she recognizes both well enough not to reach for a weapon. Adelard Dekker, yes. Alone. She opens the door to see him standing there, looking starched and formal and far more tired than he had been the last time they parted ways. She wonders about the nature of the job he’d been concluding – checks the angle of that curiosity and finds with some relief that it falls closer to sympathy than predation – but the kindest thing she can do for him in that regard is dig out the therapist’s business card that she keeps in her purse; only a fool would turn to her for comfort, and Dekker has never been that. He’s never been one for therapy, either. The things they’ve seen, the two of them, they endure.

“Come in,” she says. “Can I get you anything? Tea?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

She hadn’t truly expected otherwise. She is well familiar with Dekker’s patterns and preferences by now – the way he hangs his coat and hat by the door like they belong there, but adjusts his cuffs as he does before the dangerous phase of an investigation, that small physical ritual to steady his mind. His nod, nevertheless, is fond, and her smile is welcoming as she clasps his hand briefly, reminded that even small rituals have their value.

“It’s been a year,” he says.

“As of twelve days from now, yes.”

“You’ve been keeping track of days?” he asks, with raised eyebrows and a trace of concern hidden beneath habitual calm. “We’d best get on with it, then.”

“We’d best,” she says, and brushes the back of his knuckles with her thumb before letting go.

He leads the way. He knows the way, moves comfortably through her space, makes no comments about the incongruity of a not-yet-monster who keeps floral prints on her walls and a vase of irises on her bedside table. _Brightens the place up,_ she’d tell him, if he did. Nothing wrong with a bit of brightness. She sinks with a sigh into the room’s one comfortable chair, but her attention never strays from him as he closes the door behind them both.

His breathing is, at first, controlled, as he applies his steady hands to the buttons of that crisp white shirt. He shrugs it from his shoulders, folds it, sets on the dresser. His expression doesn’t shift from calm, but he shivers as she lets her eyes follow a slow trail down over his revealed skin, and he swallows hard. Trousers next, and underwear. She watches the muscles in his back move as he bends to strip them off and set them aside, tracks the way that light and shadow play across his skin as he crosses the room to her bed and takes his place upon it. 

He lies back, tries to make himself comfortable among her quilts and pillows, but she can see the tightness lingering in his thin shoulders. He takes another careful breath and turns away, eyes closed as he reaches down to take himself in hand. Company would have made this easier, allowed him someone else to take the lead and some distraction from the thought of his own exposure. She could say without lying that she wanted him here alone because she trusts him, that she wished to see _him_ and no other, but the other, more immediate truth is that he is here because she is hungry, and in her hunger, she has no wish to permit him that reprieve.

“Dekker,” she says gently. “Look at me.”

He stills for a moment, and then, deliberately, he does. Despite his efforts, he’s still tense, caught between reserve and nervous energy. She takes in detail: the sparse grey hair across his chest and down his stomach, the angular hipbones, the fragile weight of his cock in his hand. He’s soft still, though he strokes himself lightly, his thumb tracing over the shaft, and she cannot help but enjoy the sight of him like this.

“Sorry,” he says. “Stage fright.” He shrugs one shoulder, and laughs a little, a sound fraught with something more complicated than embarrassment.

“I don’t mind,” she says, tasting the undercurrent running through his words, the joke that isn’t only a joke.

“No,” he says. “You don’t, do you?” His voice this time is soft, a little rough, and he meets her gaze with pupils wide and dark as his fingers curl just a little tighter around his now-hardening cock. He is not an exhibitionist by nature, but the knowledge slips unbidden into her mind that though he would scarcely admit it, there is something in his blood that thrills at the thought of being _prey_.

Well. She is quite comfortable playing the hawk, and letting him play the rabbit. She smiles, lets him feel the full weight of everything she wants from him and has refrained from taking, and the spike in his heart-rate, the shuddering catch of his breath in his chest, is at once so very close to what she needs and so far away that it aches. But in this moment it’s enough, because it must be enough, to sit back, hold herself still, and watch this man undo himself piece by piece beneath her gaze. Like unpicking the thread from a piece of cross-stitch, she thinks: careful work, delicate, always so easy to get things tangled and make a mess. Dekker has little love for disorder; he likes his clothing pristine, his demeanor professional and his few belongings precisely ordered. He has learned the value of impeccable image and unassailable defenses – and he is here, with her, allowing her to see something he would show to no one else. There is a gift, or more precisely, an offering in the way he grips his thigh too tightly with one hand and thrusts up into the other, the low sound caught between his teeth as his methodical pace shifts and quickens. He doesn’t take his eyes off her. She does not imagine that he can. 

There is cause for care in that; she knows it, just as he did when he stepped through her door. But there is no harm in tracking the bead of sweat that traces a slow path down his throat, or committing to memory the twist of his wrist, the flex of tendon and muscle as his body arcs beneath his own touch, the way his cock slides flushed and heavy against his palm. She catalogued his scars long ago, though there are new ones scattered across his chest and shoulders, made by fire, blades, teeth. She wants to ask about them; he’ll tell her, if he sees the need. She wants to reach deeper, skimming not the surface but the depths of his thoughts, where memories and monsters lurk. Dangerous, that desire. The barrier between _wanting_ and _knowing_ is thin, permeable, and in the space between one breath and the next, she can feel the way the shadows used to twist outside his bedroom window, the long slow spiral of a path that uncoils like a serpent beneath his boots, the sound of footsteps advancing behind him in the dark. She draws back abruptly; these things are not hers to take, and she breathes out, lets the memories slip through her grip – but his pulse is pounding faster now, spurred on by a little thread of fear, and instinct grips him tighter between its teeth. In some ways, there is little difference between one type of arousal and another; in some ways the difference is absolute. But she sees him with eyes half closed, caught in the torrent of what he’s feeling, and she recognizes in herself that reflexive, wordless need. His body arches. His hand moves rapidly. He has not forgotten, cannot forget, that he is observed, but still he offers himself up, and she takes it all, feels it settle in her blood and on her tongue, that sweet-sharp taste of _physiological response, emotional attribution_, the moment when he finally gives himself over.

She feels it as a prickle across her skin, a rush of heat and a tightness in her belly, tension unraveling into release as his hips jerk once and he spills across his stomach and his fingers. He isn’t silent. His breath escapes him in a rush, and he falls back, his chest rising and falling almost evenly as his fingers uncurl and he slips gradually into a more restful calm. She gives herself a moment longer to look at him as he is now – defenseless, but with no need for defenses. Then she rises to cross the distance from the chair to the bed on legs gone suddenly shaky with the remnants of a pleasure that is and isn’t hers, and he looks up at her with a weary smile. 

She wipes the traces of the act from his skin with a handkerchief, but his hand, she kisses clean, tasting salt and bitterness, feeling him shiver again. The ghost of satiation lingers for a moment, alien, before she remembers that she is hungry still.

Better now, though, than she was before. Steadier. Close enough to herself to remember that small things matter, and she touches his face with kindness, as a lover might, before easing off her slippers and climbing into bed beside him. She is not one for sentiment, but she suspects that in moments like this, he requires it, and his is the kind of hunger that harms none.

“Was it enough?” he asks.

“For now,” she says, and reaches to switch off the lamp and draw the covers up around them both. The darkness is comfortable, far from absolute but enough to soften edges and steal meaning from form. She can make out his outline beneath the blankets, feel the way his weight bends the mattress, but more than that can only be known through touch and by impression. There is, she suspects, a sort of mercy in that.

“How long?” he asks.

“Three months,” she says. “Half a year at most, I think, but – no. That isn’t likely.” She wants to say _another year,_ wants more than that to say _never again,_ but there is little point in self-delusion.

“I’ll be there,” he says. “Something real, next time.”

What he means is _something that hurts._

If she were kinder, or less pragmatic, she might decline. But on one thing, they are agreed: if there is a choice, and there isn’t always, then better him than someone unknowing.

“There may not be a next time,” she says, and feels him go still beside her. “I’m closing in on something. When I know enough, I’ll tell you more, but let us say for now that there may be a way to bring the whole rotten Institute down, and with it any chance of an Eye ritual for centuries.”

“And it will kill you.” There’s neither doubt nor protest in his voice. Perhaps it comforts him, the thought that she’d ask no less of herself than of her assistants. Perhaps ruthlessness may be forgiven, if it is consistent and sufficiently principled – but she won’t pretend that she has any intention of atoning through sacrifice.

“It will kill the Archivist,” she says, “but I think it’s time for the Archivist to die. As for _me_... we’ll see. Or you will, at least, if all goes according to plan.”

“Does anything ever go according to plan?”

“Not very often,” she says, and rests her head in the crook of his shoulder, and if either of them mean to speak of the matter further, she knows it won’t be tonight. His hand finds her hair, and she wraps an arm around his waist, feeling the warmth of his body against her own. There have been times when she wondered to what extent she has ever been capable of love, but the simple answer is that it doesn’t matter. He’s here, if only for the moment, and so is she.


End file.
